MIT
Genetic tools developed by MIT and Malaysian researchers will help identify and preserve a Southeast Asian tree containing a substance that inhibits viruses and boosts fertility. The work is reported in the March 2003 issue of Plant Physiology. Compounds extracted from the roots of the tree may lead to useful new drugs. New genetic tools for studying the trees and other tropical plants were developed by researchers at MIT and the Forest Research Institute of Malaysia (FRIM).
Just as vegetables are essential to balancing the human diet, the inclusion of vegetation may be equally essential to balancing Earth's climate models. Scientists at MIT who were trying to create accurate models of climate change in the southern portion of the Sahara desert found that including a realistic component of vegetation growth and decay was absolutely essential. Without including the vegetation as a variable (rather than a fixed parameter), the models were not able to show the region's transformation from a fertile expanse of vegetation 6,000 years ago to an arid stretch of mostly sand and mountains today.
Even with aggressive research, the hydrogen fuel-cell vehicle will not be better than the diesel hybrid (a vehicle powered by a conventional engine supplemented by an electric motor) in terms of total energy use and greenhouse gas emissions by 2020, says a study recently released by MIT's Laboratory for Energy and the Environment (LFEE). And while hybrid vehicles are already appearing on the roads, adoption of the hydrogen-based vehicle will require major infrastructure changes to make compressed hydrogen available. If we need to curb greenhouse gases within the next 20 years, improving mainstream gasoline and diesel engines and transmissions and expanding the use of hybrids is the way to go.
Caltech?s top chess players will compete in their first intercollegiate match of the year when they face MIT?s chess team on Sunday, March 2. The match will be held on the Internet Chess Club, the world?s largest online chess community, and will represent the first Internet chess match ever to take place between Caltech and MIT.
Researchers have developed a way to exploit RNA interference for the first time to silence genes in a wide variety of mammalian cells, including embryonic cells. The study will appear in the Feb. 17 edition of Nature Genetics. This new approach allows genes to be switched off by inserting short pieces of ribonucleic acid (RNA) into developing cells. It is currently being used to help researchers uncover the function of the more than 30,000 genes found in humans, as well as in animal models of important diseases.
U.S. Department of Energy scientists and an MIT colleague have created a library of 1 billion human antibodies on the surface of yeast cells. The work will speed the search for new antibodies, proteins that are effective tools for recognizing specific molecules. It also promises to make the hunt less expensive. "Antibodies are assuming increasingly important roles in such diverse fields as sensors, proteomics, diagnostics, and therapeutics. We have captured a broad sample of the antibody diversity present in adult humans, and expressed it on the surface of yeast cells in a format suitable for quantitative screening," said K. Dane Wittrup, J.R. Mares Professor of Chemical Engineering and Bioengineering. The technology, reported in the February issue of Nature Biotechnology, "provides a robust and direct route to the isolation of useful antibodies" outside a living body, he continued. As a result, it could replace the need to produce antibodies within animals, such as mice. It also opens up new possibilities for rapidly designing medical treatments more acceptable to the human immune system.
While it may seem that cell phones, computers and other technology gadgets are Americans' most coveted items, teens and adults agree that the toothbrush is the one invention they cannot live without. The 2003 Lemelson-MIT Invention Index, an annual survey of Americans' perceptions about inventing and innovating, found that technologically advanced items significantly lag in importance behind the toothbrush, which was developed in the 15th century.
MIT engineers and colleagues from the University of California are reporting a unique design of a "smart surface" that can reversibly switch properties in response to an external stimulus. The work paves the way for systems that could, for example, release or absorb cells and chemicals from surfaces on demand. In the Jan. 17 issue of Science, the researchers describe an example of their new approach in which they engineered a surface that can change from water-attracting to water-repelling with the application of a weak electric field. Switch the electrical potential of that field from positive to negative and the surface reverts to its initial affinity for water.
In an advance illustrating the power of genomic information, an international team of researchers today announced it has identified a gene that causes Leigh Syndrome, French Canadian type (LSFC), a fatal inherited disorder affecting 1 in 2000 live births each year in the Saguenay-Lac St Jean region of Quebec. The paper appears in the January 14 issue of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The findings will have immediate clinical implications for families in the Saguenay-Lac St-Jean region in the Quebec province in Canada, where the disorder is common and is associated with high infant and childhood mortality.
A young MIT professor's basic research on complex sugars has led to a cascade of potential medical applications that could, for example, significantly improve outcomes for patients undergoing major operations such as heart bypass surgery and impact a multi-billion dollar drug industry. In the online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences for the week of January 13, a team led by the professor, Ram Sasisekharan, reports the creation of designer drugs for preventing the blood clots that can cause strokes and heart disease during surgery. The resulting drugs have major advantages over the conventional form they are based on, which has an annual market of $2-3 billion. Further, an additional drug based on Sasisekharan's work is presently in Phase III clinical trials for heart bypass patients.
Researchers at MIT have created what could be the flat panel display of the future, combining organic materials with high-performing inorganic nanocrystals to create a hybrid optoelectronic structure. In other words, a quantum dot-organic LED, or light-emitting device. Also called artificial atoms, quantum dots are nanometer-scale "boxes" that selectively hold or release electrons. Unlike traditional LCDs, which must be lit from behind, quantum dots generate their own light. Depending on their size, the dots can be "tuned" to emit any color in the rainbow. And the colors of light they produce are much more saturated than that of other sources.
An expert in computational biology at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) estimates that it took many more evolutionary genome rearrangements than previously thought -- both large and small -- to account for differences in the human and mouse genomes. The findings are included in two landmark papers announced today.
The search for a Holy Grail of climate science may be nearing an end, if an MIT-led project is launched by NASA to measure soil moisture?data needed to predict global change, assess global warming and support the Kyoto Protocol. That measurement has been missing from the array of clues?rainfall, atmospheric chemistry, humidity and temperature?used by scientists to predict change in the local and global climate. Using soil moisture, they can calculate evaporation?the process that links the water, energy and carbon cycles?giving them a better understanding of global change.
MIT researchers have reported that a high-carbohydrate dietary supplement can help patients who experience weight gain while taking antidepressants. Even though the high-carbohydrate regimen altered serotonin levels, it did not alter the antidepressants' effectiveness. The regimen, which includes a high-carbohydrate drink developed at MIT based on research conducted here, also helped non-medicated obese individuals, the researchers reported. All participants lost between 12 and 26 pounds during the 12-week study. Patients taking psychotropic medications such as antidepressants that increase the activity of serotonin in the brain sometimes gain weight by overeating sweet and starchy foods.
Researchers may have discovered the mechanism behind how prions ? pieces of protein molecules? can kill nerve cells in the brain and lead to some serious degenerative diseases. The key seems to lie in how one particular protein misfolds within an organelle inside the cell, transforming itself into a new agent and then poisoning the neuron in which it was made.
